


One Of These Mornings

by wajjs



Series: jason todd in songs [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Inspired by Music, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25901887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wajjs/pseuds/wajjs
Summary: The greatness of a secret is that it’s always merciful to others.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: jason todd in songs [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725541
Kudos: 24





	One Of These Mornings

**Author's Note:**

> Writing sucks right now but if I stop writing I fear I will no longer know what to do with myself

[**O** ne Of These Mornings](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=hqxbSggZ-vI)

_You will look for me_

_and I’ll be gone._

There is a mastery to learn and perfect when it all comes down to starting again. There is a science to reinventing yourself, picking up the shattered red pieces of a helmet, finding the pattern and making everything work once more. It takes a deep knowledge of who you are, deep down, what you want and what you hate. It involves accepting that hitting restart is both the hardest and easiest way out. It involves biting your tongue until you can almost taste your blood, staring ahead and at nothing at all, working hard till the very last moment, till the very last second, until the lights all go out.

It’s in the way he’s been existing since the best come back he’s ever pulled. Like he’s there but he might stop being, like he’s back yet he still remains gone. Tiptoeing the harsh line in between things, the worst place a person can find themselves in. The most painful role in a play, the one that hurts to see. Not a role he would ever choose for himself even during his worst moments, but the one that has been forced on him, the one he’s been existing under all this time.

He sees his chance at getting rid of it.

He can almost see with glory in each detail what would be of him should he take the chance.

He wants, for a second, he wants it.

At the end of the day, when it comes down to the bone and guts of the matter, when it’s time to jump into the fire and decide how it’s going to end - at the end of everything, he makes up his mind.

The greatness of a secret is that it’s always merciful to others.

He’s leaning against the windowsill, arms crossed over his chest and eyes tracking the soft movement of branches and leaves caused by the gentle early summer wind. He’s got half a mind to go outside, lit a smoke and enjoy it, still something’s keeping him to this spot right here, waiting for something great to happen. There’s a crackling in the atmosphere of this room. There’s a promise.

“Anyways,” it’s not his own voice, the one that breaks the silence, but the one of the other person present, sharing the space inside these four walls, “do you ever wonder what it would be like?”

“What it would be like, what?,” some doves take flight almost clumsily. It’s easy to see the effort they make to take off.

“To be normal.”

“Far as I know,” humming, he uncrosses his arms, crosses them again, “you’re pretty much human, Timbo. Unless you’ve been fooling us all this damn time.”

Tim snorts.

“You know that’s not what I meant, jackass.”

“Yet you’re not confirming or denying anything.”

“I meant, like,” he leans back in his chair, which squeaks a little with the shift in weight, and his hands hover over his laptop’s keyboard, ready to go back to typing again, “like, you know, having a normal life. A normal family. Normal friends.”

Jason shifts where he’s standing. He thinks of all the times he considered it. Having a life. Having a chance at doing something outside of this madness. How close he’s come to just going for it.

“This,” he says, and moves a hand to point back and forth in the space between them, “this, Timmers, is our normal. It sucks sometimes. But it’s ours.”

“Only sometimes?,” he says with soft laughter. Jason thinks of the summer wind again.

He looks at Tim with a rogue smile. “Come on now. We both know there are good moments every now and then. Would you want to trade them for a different normal, defined by different shit?”

There’s silence that lasts for a minute. Tim goes back to looking at his screen, brings his fingers down on the keys again, types in a few words.

“I don’t think so, no,” he says just as Jason’s back to looking out of the window, “I don’t think I would trade this for anything else."


End file.
